Bailout

As you know, in my spare time I am an internationally renown economist.

Here, then, is a modest proposal for bailing out the banking system.

The crux of this proposal is to use the FDIC and changes in FDIC policy to relieve the pressures on the banking system. First, Congress should allocate a huge block of money to assure full funding of FDIC. FDIC traditionally has about 1.25% coverage of insured funds. At the end of 2007, FDIC had about $52 billion to cover $4.3 trillion in assets (source - wikipedia.) Congress promising $100 billion to FDIC should go a long way towards alleviating fears of bank insolvency, while being far short of the $700 billion being asked for in the current plan. Further, such money might never be needed. FDIC should then increase the maximum insurance per account from the current $100,000 to at least $500,000, or better yet $1 million. This would decrease the pressure on banks from high-net-worth depositors withdrawing money.

Next, FDIC should temporarily lower its capital ratio requirements. According to Wikipedia, the current capital ratio requirements are as follows:

• Well capitalized: 10% or higher
• Adequately capitalized: 8% or higher
• Undercapitalized: less than 8%
• Significantly undercapitalized: less than 6%
• Critically undercapitalized: less than 2%

"When a bank becomes undercapitalized the FDIC issues a warning to the bank. When the number drops below 6% the FDIC can change management and force the bank to take other corrective action. When the bank becomes critically undercapitalized the FDIC declares the bank insolvent and can take over management of the bank." (Source, - wikipedia.)

I propose that for 6 months capital requirements be lowered as follows:

• Well capitalized: 8% or higher
• Adequately capitalized: 5% or higher
• Undercapitalized: less than 3%
• Significantly undercapitalized: less than 1.5%
• Critically undercapitalized: less than 0.25%

Yes, these numbers are drastic, but they would keep banks afloat temporarily. This would allow these banks to sell off assets or seek investors or take-over suitors in an orderly fashion. Since FDIC would be well funded and would be guaranteeing deposits up to $500K or $1M, there shouldn't be runs on these banks, even at exceedingly low capitalization.

One downside to this structure is that it would incent banks that are currently capitalized at 10% to lower their capitalization. Therefore, there would need to be a counter-incentive, which could be provided in the form of a larger spread in the insurance rate. Banks which have and maintain greater than today's 10% capitalization would be rewarded with a very low insurance rate. As capitalization decreases, the insurance rate would become more and more draconian. This would incent banks to maintain or increase their capitalization coverage, while not putting poorly capitalized banks immediately out of business. Well capitalized banks could buy out poorly capitalized banks, doing the math for themselves to see how the decrease in combined capitalization would impact their insurance rates. Similarly, poorly capitalized banks could sell assets or raise capital in a manner that balances their insurance rate with their capitalization costs. Well capitalized banks might find that it is worth their while to make new loans until their capitalization fell to 8%, thereby injecting liquidity into the system with no cost to taxpayers or shareholders.

Next, congress should mandate that all banks mark their assets to market, but would not require those banks to divest those assets. Some assets would be market down a little bit, others quite a lot, still others might be marked down to zero. Once this is done, if the bank's capitalization is below 0.25% (or negative,) FDIC would intervene and take over the bank. However, those banks that are liquid can continue to do business, and wont be required to divest those "toxic" assets. If banks were all required to divest these bad loans, or if the Fed were to take over those assets and put them on the market, the value of those assets would fall even further as there becomes an instant glut on the market. By allowing banks to continue to hold these subprime assets, but requiring them to mark them at their true market value, the marketplace is not overwhelmed and the banks can lend against their fair market value.

Finally, the bank's capital requirements would also temporarily be decreased - perhaps by as much as 50%. Capital requirement is a complicated piece of math, but where most banks have a capital requirement that works out to about 10%, lowering it to something like 5% temporarily would further give failing banks the breathing room necessary to recover or get taken over in an orderly fashion.

The benefits of this proposal are several. First and foremost, it requires no new governmental bureaucracy. Existing structures and institutions could be leveraged to solve this crisis. Second, it largely relies on the market to purge itself of this infection. Next, it keeps most banks in business and allows many banks to increase lending. Also, it should cost the taxpayer far less than the current $700B proposals - mostly this plan simply requires a promise to cover FDIC's insurance needs. Finally, it keeps the US government out of the business of owning and running banks.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Maxims

I watched with interest both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions over the past two weeks. I have been tempted time and time again to write about the errors, inconsistencies, and lies promulgated by various speakers (mostly on the Republican side, since I am an unapologetic Democrat.) However, the web is a virtual cornucopia of such material, so what is the point of repeating it here. Yes, I might write about some of the worst offenses, but not yet.

One of the things I noticed in both conventions that had me scratching my head was that almost every speaker reported one or more pithy maxims that they learned from their forebears. Some, particularly the candidates themselves, overflowed with deep meaningful statements from their parents and grandparents. Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin could hardly open their mouths without coming up with some little chestnut; "A penguin without a hat wont nail a 2x4 for its nation." "If you haven't climbed a cherry tree, you must give America a phonebook." "When considering the past, always count your staples." And so on.

I wondered what I would say if I had to come up with insights about values handed down from generation to generation. I could hardly think of a damned thing. Were my parents and grandparents parsimonious with their wisdom, or simply unwise? Did an endless stream of pearls fall on my own deaf ears? Is my family exceedingly boring or selfish? Perhaps my forefathers and I have had better things to do than put observations of the world into words. Perhaps we were too lazy to do so. Perhaps it wasn't in our cultural background to make crafty statements. Perhaps we relied on the Bible and other literature to provide moral lessons instead of re-creating them anew.

I recall only one explicit character statement from my father. As a small child I allowed teasing from other kids to drive me to tears. My father took me out on the back stoop. He brought with him an apple and an orange. Dropping them both, he showed me that the apple was bruised, but the orange was not. He told me I needed to have "a thick skin like the orange" so I wouldn't get bruised. It was a good lesson has served me in life. [Aside: there was actually a second lesson from my father, much later in my life, but it was presented in confidence, so I will not repeat it here.]

There were other lessons handed down at the dinner table throughout my youth. The importance of education, not being a show-off, and noblesse oblige. Still, the plethora of maxims proffered at the party's conventions did have me wondering, did I miss something?

Third

I watched about 2/3rds of the Democratic National Convention last week and was very impressed.

Unfortunately, I missed Michelle Obama's speech (though I am intending to watch it online when I get a chance,) but I did see Hillary Clinton speak. I felt she spoke exceedingly well. In that speech she really needed to show her support for Obama, but she couldn't be so effusive as to be unbelievable. She also needed retain her own standing so that if (heaven forbid) McCain wins, she can run again in 2012. I have heard some pundits suggest that she wasn't effusive enough, and others have said that she lacked credibility in her statement of support. Personally, I think she had a very fine line to walk and did so almost perfectly.

As for her famous husband, I think Bill Clinton is one of the greatest orators of our time. As pure, gripping speech, I though he was amazing and nailed all his points. What I wouldn't give to have his charisma.

I've always respected Joe Biden as a thinker and genuine-seeming public servant. In his speech he introduced himself to America well, he took appropriate shots at McCain, and he presented the Obama/Biden ticket with excellence. Not a speech to go down in the record books, but all in all a very fine piece of work.

Finally, Barack Obama's speech was, of course, outstanding. There were points as he moved from broad rhetoric to specific policy statements where I felt like the transitions were clumsy - slightly head snapping like missing a shift in a car. Still, he did have to balance sweeping uplifting statements with real information about policy initiatives and he covered both with excellence.

There was one thing that kinda bugged me that showed up in many speeches throughout the convention - the oft repeated refrain that this is the most important election of our lifetimes. I kept hearing that and wishing that some speaker would stand up and say "No, this isn't the most important election of our lifetimes. It's the third most important election of our lifetimes!"

The first most important election of our lifetimes was the 2000 election, when George W. Bush became president for the first time. Imagine how different the world would be today had Al Gore been president! [I wont say "had Al Gore won the election", since that opens the whole kettle of worms about who actually won. I'll leave it that he didn't become president.] The second most important election of our time was in 2004, when John Kerry didn't become president. That was our second chance to mitigate the damage inflicted by GW, and we screwed the pooch.

This election, then, is our third chance. It is only as important as it is because we blew it the previous two times. Even though I know Obama is going to raise my taxes and institute other policies that may not be in my personal short-term best interests, I fervently pray that we make him our 44th president.

Remember, this is the third most important election of our lifetimes. Let's get it right!

Goong

The Culinary Historians of Northern California (aka CHoNC) had their annual Napa dinner party this week. The theme was figs, but I decided to provide a respite from a meal of nothing but ficus by making Goong Waan, Thai sweet shrimp.

(photo by Jeannette Ferrary)

Here I am with my plate of shrimp, flanked by the impish, and highly prolific, author Ken Albala.

As always, the goon waan, were a big hit.

Here is the recipe for your enjoyment.

GOONG WAAN
Herbed Sweetened Shrimp
From the Thai Cooking School at the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok
Recipe edited and annotated by Andrew Sigal

Ingredients:
2 cups shrimps, cleaned, heads removed, unpeeled.
3/4 cup palm sugar.
3 tablespoons fish sauce.
2 tablespoons chopped-crushed cilantro roots
[Unless you grow your own, cilantro roots are hard to come by. Substitute the bottoms of bunches of cilantro. Cilantro with roots is often available at Whole Foods.]
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon white peppercorns, lightly crushed.
1/2 cup water.

Preparation:
Melt palm sugar, fish sauce and water over heat until dissolved.
Add cilantro root, garlic, and peppercorns.

Heat to reduce to a syrup. The shrimp will give off a lot of liquid when they are added, so you want the sauce to be quite thick. However, this is a sugar preparation, so be careful about caramelizing or burning the syrup as the water evaporates.

Add shrimps, stirring to cover. Simmer over low heat until the shrimp are cooked and glazed in the sauce. If the sauce becomes too thin, remove the shrimp with a slotted spoon and cook to reduce. This is preferable to potentially overcooking the shrimp.

Serve warm.

Plug

This is a shameless plug for my other web sites. After all, my blog ought to be an opportunity to promote myself. This is also a blatant request (aka "beg") that you, dear reader, help me out by putting links to my sites and this blog (http://andrewsigal.blogspot.com/) on your web sites and blogs. Helping promote my sites through social bookmarking (delicious, digg, etc.) would be icing on the cake!

My primary web site is Sigal.org, http://www.sigal.org/, what we used to call my "homepage" in the good old days. Under that site is included my work in culinary history. In particular, I have written the definitive work (to date) on the history and origins of Jambalaya. Unfortunately, Google doesn't realize that my work is the final word on the subject so I show up halfway down the results if you search for "jambalaya history." If you'd like to link to http://www.sigal.org/CulinaryHistory/Jambalaya/Jambalaya.htm, it would help my page ranking.

Though I haven't updated it for quite some time, my "commercial" site is TripTalk.com, http://www.triptalk.com/default.asp. Though the text is getting somewhat long in the tooth, most visitors to the site look at the photos. I hope they find them valuable.

Hopefully this post will increase my page rankings. If you have a site or blog and feel comfortable mentioning or linking to my pages, I would be grateful.

Anniversary

Today is the 10 year anniversary of my graduating from Microsoft. What a long strange trip its been!

People have been asking me if I can believe that it has been 10 years. The answer is "absolutely not." On the other hand, I can't believe that I am 46 years old. I haven't been able to get over my chronological age since I was 30. I can't believe that there's anything I've done (other than eating and breathing) that can be measured in decades. I can't believe there are friends that I have had for decades (though I am grateful for every one.) I am at once amazed at how much I have accomplished in the last 10 years and at how little I've done. It has flown and crept by; I have done everything and nothing. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like and where I'd be today had I spent that last 10 years in the bosom of MSFT, instead of out here where I create each day anew.

I am frequently asked if I miss working at Microsoft. The answer is always "yes" and "no." Microsoft was an amazing place to work. It was (and probably still is) a place where one can work on really interesting problems with an exciting group of people and product a product that will be seen and used by a vast audience of people. If I had helped to create a program like Access at some other company, the project would have been just as intriguing, but without Microsoft's name, reputation, and marketing muscle, it might have been ignored in the marketplace. Releasing Access at Microsoft meant that within a year it was in use by a million people, and today tens of millions use it directly or indirectly. At the risk of an immodest analogy, it is like being Claude Monet, recognized as a leader in the impressionist movement, versus being Van Gogh, a fantastic painter ignored during his lifetime and dying penniless.

The thing I miss most about Microsoft are the people - in particular the lunchtime conversations. Day after day I recall fascinating company in the cafeteria. People with such amazing brainpower and diverse knowledge and interests that each meal was an education. I recall lunches where people proposed word problems (such as "the island of the blue eyed people") and analyzed answers.

I recall a lunch early on in my career where I exclaimed on the recent increase in the stock price. Sitting across from me was Charles Simony, one of Microsoft's most brilliant "architects." He looked at me and said, "yes, but the third derivative is negative." [What he meant was that the stock price was going up, and the rate that it was going up was increasing (acceleration), but the rate of acceleration was decreasing.] I also recall another lunch with Charles in which we were discussing the price of something over time (gas? GNP? I forget.) I had studied it in college and made some comment about the price movement over recent decades. Charles glared at me, demanding "What is the shape of the graph?"I was stunned. My mind went blank. I couldn't form an answer. "Well? What is the shape of the graph? Is the graph rising or is it falling?!?!" I was frozen. Charles then told me that the graph was falling and proceeded to prove why my claim was wrong. You couldn't swim with these guys unless you had all your facts in a row. Sigh.

On the other hand, working at Microsoft was incredibly demanding. To do well there one had to give one's all; there was very little life outside of work. I got up in the morning, drank coffee, and drove to Redmond. I worked, ate, and played at Microsoft for the next 10 to 12 hours, then drove home and pretty much went to sleep. Those were my days. During "crunch" times that often included one of the two weekend days. Later in my career I refused to work weekends and insisted on taking an hour or two in the evenings to ride my bike or go to the gym. I needed the time to myself and often got a lot of good thinking done while away from the office.

Microsoft is not good for relationships. Most people, male or female, were single. Many were divorced. I recall a number of divorces that occurred while I was there. People were married to their work. Microsoft was a place full of "A-Type" people, that attracted A-types, and encouraged them to be as A-type as possible. It would bring in kids straight out of college, give them the coolest technology, interesting problems to work on, all the soda they could drink, and burn them up. I was lucky -I came in as an "adult," refusing some of the bullshit. I also came in early enough in the company's history that by the time I burned out I could afford to leave.

I expected to be there at least 10 years, but only lasted seven and a half. Now I've been gone for 10. Happy Anniversary!

Road

I drove from Oakland to Los Angeles on Thursday. I couldn't help thinking what a supremely inefficient way it was to get my body from one place to another. As it happened, I needed a car in LA and I was planning on bringing a large box back with me, so it made more sense to drive than to fly. Economically, the price of driving was basically the same as flying. Adding in the cost of renting a car once in LA made driving a no-brainer. However, while in progress, the process feels ridiculous. Get in the car, turn on the iPod, put on the cruise control, and turn my brain off for the next six hours.

I don't know how interstate truckers do it. Driving endlessly, day after day. One "short" drive from the SF Bay to LA makes me nuts. Driving to and from Colorado (which I have done four times,) is absolutely painful. Doing this as a job would be the third ring of hell for me.

I passed a truck on the highway that had a bumper-sticker reading "Without trucks, America stops." Its true. The amount of stuff shipped by truck in this country is amazing. The number of cars and trucks on I-5 in California at any given time of day or night is absolutely staggering.

While driving I can easily turn the cruise control on, but I can't turn my brain off; I can't stop thinking. Driving on I-5 makes me think in particular about the tragedy of the war in Iraq. The cost in lives lost and ruined, the cost in dollars, the damage to the nation of Iraq, the damage to the reputation and economy of the United States. This war has truly been a crime against humanity.

I am sure that eight years ago we did not have an extra trillion dollars lying around to spend on anything. We didn't have a trillion dollars to spend on education, or health care, or infrastructure. Where did we find a trillion to spend on a war in Iraq?

Driving down a busy, car-filled I-5 at noon on a Thursday, I couldn't help thinking of what it would have been like had we spent a trillion dollars over the last eight years building the worlds greatest high-speed train system. Imagine if we had taken the brave men and women that we sent to Iraq, given them a trillion dollars, and said "build this nation a train system that will be the envy of the world."

Think of the jobs that would have been created! The economic impact of the people building the trains, manufacturing the rails and cars, feeding the workers, housing the workers, building the train stations, making clothes for the workers and the engineers, the uniforms for the wait staffs at the cafes in the train stations, the salaries of the people manufacturing the cups to hold the coffee sold at the train station cafes... And think of the value added to our nation for generations to come! A trillion dollar train system would have instantly reduced our dependence on oil, foreign or domestic.

Instead we have thousands of children cut down in the prime of their lives, a foreign nation in ruins, an insatiable desire for oil, and a planet full of people who hate us for it.

Laziness

I think that I am a supremely lazy person. All things being equal, given the choice between doing something and doing nothing, I tend to choose nothing. Of course, that is an overstatement; I don't really know how to state the reality that I feel - everything I say here must be an approximation. The fact that I am writing this at all belies what I am saying. Blogging is not laziness.

Whenever I expound on my lazy nature, my friends always tell me I'm wrong. They point to my accomplishments in my professional career, they note the things I have created in my life, and the effort I put into friendships themselves. But I can't help feeling lazy and truly enjoying that laziness. I love the feel of sun and breeze on my skin. I want to sit in the sun and let the moments go by, watching thoughts float through my head on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. I inculcate serenity.

As for my professional accomplishments, I like to recite a quote that I have always attributed to Ben Franklin (of course, searching online now I cant find it): "If you want to find a really efficient way to do something, ask a lazy man how he would do it." I believe that my whole career boiled down to being super efficient in the way I did things, and that I was able to be super-efficient because I was supremely lazy.

I have all kinds of behaviors that compensate for my laziness. I make lists. I tackle projects so I don't have to think about them. I organize and arrange things for easy access. From the outside this undoubtedly looks like active efficiency and accomplishment. From the inside it feels like expediency driven by laziness.

I think its time for my mid-morning nap.

Rebel Rebel

This morning the song in my head was Rebel Rebel by David Bowie.

Why? How did my brain pick that song? I own Diamond Dogs and the other albums on which the track appears. I have it in my iPod as well. So its quite possible that the song came up while I was driving and entered my sub-conscious though my conscious mind lost track of it. But I don't think so. Perhaps I saw an ad for some product, a Canon EOS Rebel camera or a Nissan Rebel for example, that used the song as backing track. I've been reading Malcom Gladwell's Blink, which has brought to mind the power of the sub-conscious. Clearly Rebel Rebel could have been prompted by something in my day.

Still, frequently songs come into my head that I'm sure I haven't heard for a very long time. Songs that I don't own. Songs that I don't even like. Interestingly, they are usually pieces that I don't know well. Usually it is just a snippet, often only the refrain. And it goes over and over and over in my head. The only technique I've found to consistently cure this affliction is to sing a song (in my head) that I know and like. That will almost always drive the intruding musical phrase from its track.

I am consistently amazed by my mind's ability to score a soundtrack for my day. Quiet moments are rarely quiet inside my head. I wonder whether this is something that all people share, or a personal dementia. But most of all, how do I choose the songs? Why an old track from an early XTC album, followed by one sentence from a Brittney Spears song, followed by Rebel Rebel. Perhaps I will need to be a cognitive psychologist in my next lifetime.

Sleepless

I finally hired a contractor yesterday to create my dream home (a whole nuther story there.) I guess it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I didn't sleep well. I had trouble falling asleep even though I was bone tired and still not over my cold. Finally I did fall asleep, but then there I was, wide awake, looking at a clock that said "2:00," with my head full of fireplace flues and soffits and trellises.

I've been living the details of this project since October of last year - I've allowed it to become very consuming. There are a lot of interesting and exciting custom details and I believe it will be an amazing house when its done. But the price is really high - much more than I ever planned to spend. Oh well.

So I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, and lay there, wide awake. Window trim features stomped through my mind, followed by that damn chimney flue again, and a grand parade of lighting fixtures. I looked at the clock. It said "2:45." Had I slept, or had I been laying there awake for 45 minutes? I really had no idea. It felt like I had been awake. The 80's New Wave lyric "Up all night... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night" took up residence in my brain. So I got up, had a drink of water and wrote an email to my architect describing the five possible solutions I had come up with to solve the chimney flue problem.

By now I was really tired and went back to bed. 3:00am. More and yet more chimney flues grind and grind away in my brain to an endless, endless refrain of "Up all night.... oooooh, we're stayin' up all night...." I have no idea who sang that song, nor when I last heard it. How did my sleepless brain dig up that little ditty from the detritus of the 1980's?

I look at the clock. It says 4:45am. How did that happen? Did I sleep? It doesn't feel like it, but it doesn't feel like an hour and 45 minutes have passed either. I roll over a couple of times, then wake up again. This time I was definitely asleep. It's 5:20am, but I know I was dreaming. I was in a restaurant where you prepare your own food. I was with two other people, whom I know, but I have no idea who they were. We've ordered little dumplings, but at this restaurant the dough is made from peanut butter and Reeses' peanut butter cups and sesame seeds. Since this is the "make your own" restaurant, what we receive is a plate of these ingredients. We start mixing batches of dough and kneading and kneading it. The dough seizes up as I am kneading it. I try adding more and more water too it, but it just gets slippery without getting any softer.

Bam I am awake. It's 5:20am. My brain says "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." I'm exhausted. I wonder if my architect got the drawing for the art niche in the kitchen to the contractor and if that feature was included in his bid. I wonder if I really want to spend all that money. I wonder if the living room is big enough. I wonder if I should skip putting cabinets in the workshop, or if I should just use the old desks that I've used in the past. I wonder if I'll sleep.

Bam I am awake. It's almost 6:00am. I was racing around town in some kind of super-mini-van. I needed to get to the restaurant, but I kept taking wrong turns. Every time I took a wrong turn, I corrected by doing some amazingly illegal maneuver - a U-turn on the highway, a left through a red light, driving over a median or a sidewalk. Each time there was a cop right there, watching me do the illegal move, but they never stopped me or pulled me over. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Should I cut the trellises out of the project to save money?

Bam I am awake. I don't bother to look at the clock. I had been kneading dough. Lots of batches of dough. I don't know what I was making, but I had to keep getting more and more water, one cup at a time, to add to the dough. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night." Crap. Who wrote that song and how do I get it out of my head. Maybe if I knew more than just that one line I could sing the whole thing to myself and get it done with. Alas, that one line is all I have. "Up all night.... oooooh, stayin' up all night."

Bam, its almost 9:00am. I'm exhausted. Did I sleep last night? It feels like I was awake all night long, but I have these distant memories of weird dreams. I know I sent an email in the middle of the night. Ooooof. Time to make the coffee.

Hold

Warning, this is a rant. I'm not wanting my blogging to turn into a series of diatribes, but whats the point of having a blog if you cant vent some spleen from time to time?

"Your call is very important to us. We are experiencing an unusual call volume. Please continue to hold for the next available representative."

We've all heard it, and we all hate it. I'm not covering any new ground here, and no one reading this is likely to say "gee, Andrew, what's your beef?" But I think these message bug me for a slightly more esoteric reason that most.

We're all busy and none of us likes to wait on hold. That is true for me as well. However, the thing that bothers me the most is the patronizing and untruthful language that is used. The phrase that kills me is "We're experiencing an unusual call volume," (or similar.) We all know that's a lie. Its particularly a lie when you try calling at 9am on Monday, give up, call again at 2pm on Tuesday, give up, call again on Wednesday at 4:45pm, give up and finally wait the full 32 minutes when you call on Thursday at 10:30am. The first time you might believe it. But there's no way they're experiencing an unusual call volume every time you call all week long. The truth is that they haven't hired enough telephone representatives. The truth is that they are spending their money somewhere else. Maybe their allocation of resources is absolutely correct! Maybe hiring more telephone representatives is not the best way for them to spend their money. Most recently I experienced the dreaded "unusual call volume" while trying to reach the courthouse in Oakland, California. What if the message had said, "We're sorry, but we're spending your limited tax dollars hiring police to walk the streets instead of staff to answer the phones."

The truth is that all businesses and the public sector balance costs and benefits and decide how to allocate their funds. My local courthouse is a monopoly, so I cant choose to shop elsewhere. This is not the case with most commercial enterprises. When I can't get through to Krups to ask about my broken blender, I resolve to never buy another Krups product ever again (and I haven't!) When I called Leviton to ask a question about a light switch, a human being answered on the first ring. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't ready. I had assumed that I had at least 10 minutes to get my stuff ready. Now I am buying only Leviton products for my new house. When businesses balance the cost and benefits of hiring customer support staff, do they accurately account for intangible customer "good will?" I suspect not.

Which leads me to my next bitch: "Your call is very important to us." No, its not. Its not! Really. My business may be very important to you, and you may need to take my call to acquire or retain my business, but the call itself is not important to you. You don't know why I'm calling. You don't know what I am going to say. Maybe its important, maybe its not. Maybe I'm bored and lonely and calling because I like to get abuse from customer support representatives :-) In any case, "your call is very important to us," is patronizing BS and it bugs me.

So what do I want to hear? Well, some companies do get it right; "Thank you for calling Acme Widgets. Your call will be answered by the next customer service representative. You are caller number.... 4.... in the queue. Your expected wait time is approximately.... 7..... minutes." Thank you, thank you, thank you! No BS about unusual call volumes or the importance of my call, and an indication of my wait, so I can go put a load of laundry in the wash, or whatever. True, I still have to wait 7 minutes, but I don't have to be infuriated while doing so.

Fire

California is on fire.

There are currently over 1000 fires burning in the golden state. The sky over my home in Oakland has been gray with smoke for the last three days. My thoughts go out to all those whose lives have been touched by the fires and to the firefighters working to contain the blazes.

People worry about thieves. They worry about being robbed. But fire is the worse enemy. When thieves burglarize a home, they take the television, the cash, the jewels. While those jewels may contain irreplaceable family heirlooms and gifts given by loved ones to demarcate special moments, fire takes all of those and more. Fire takes the love letters. Fire takes the photographs and the film of the first baby steps. Fire takes grandma's recipes, the favorite works of art, the children's finger paintings and the handmade sweater. On top of all that, fire takes the familiar place in which one would like to shelter while recovering from the loss. Worst of all, fire has the potential to take life itself.

Twice during my five years living in Colorado, fire came so close to my home that I could see it. Twice I went through the "lifeboat drill" - what do you take with you in your "lifeboat" when the ship is sinking. I filled up my car with love letters, photographs, tax records, computers, and favorite works of art. It is gut wrenching, walking through the house, choosing what you are going to save and what you may never see again. The objects of highest monetary value get left behind to make room for those that are truly most precious.

Twice the fires came within 2 miles of my house, and twice they were stopped. The phone never rang with that dreaded call to evacuate. Still, that lifeboat exercise became one of my reasons for leaving Colorado. So where did I move to? A place that not only has fires but earthquakes as well. Sigh.

Graffiti

I've been thinking a lot lately about the apparent human need to record one's thoughts. Or maybe the goal is to declare one's existence. Or am I mistaken? Might it be a "need" to communicate, not a need to record?

Blogging is, of course, today's obvious example. In a bygone age it was writing in a diary or a journal. Going back further, could one claim cave paintings as part of the same inherent drive?

Writing for profit (literature and journalism) feel like something different, though having met many writers, it is clear to me that the internal need to write drove these people to careers in writing, and, for most it is that need to write, more than the profit motive, that keeps them in the field.

I was sitting in Greens Restaurant in San Francisco earlier this week trying to "eat with intention," when these thoughts came unbidden into my mind. I wanted to write them down, which is one of the reasons that I started this blog. Why did I want to commit my thoughts to "the page?" Having no idea who might read this, or if it will ever be read (given the millions of blogs in the world,) it seems likely to be more about the writing and less about the communication. Coincidentally, the next night I was at a dinner party for writers. A non-writer spouse-attendee asked me why I write. My response was that I mostly write to get things out of my head so that I don't have to think about them anymore. This was not a flip answer. My thoughts have a tendency to spin and spiral inside my uncarved block until I get them the hell out of there.

I wonder about people who are illiterate. Do they feel a desire to write down their thoughts? Does being illiterate make that a non-option, so they don't even think about it? Does illiteracy lead in any way to graffiti? Graffiti can certainly be a creative expression, but more often it feels to me more like an expression of existence, "I was here." I'd be curious to see if there is any statistical relationship between illiteracy and graffiti. Perhaps in my next lifetime (or the one after that,) I'll need to plan on being a sociologist.

Pho

Recently I watched the movie "How to Cook Your Life," a documentary about Zen Cooking (more about that later.) Coincidentally, the current issue of Edible East Bay had a number of articles about Zen Cooking as well (more about that later too.) In each case, the main thrust was about "intention" - cooking with intention, eating with intention, living with intention. The subject of "How to Cook Your Life" says, "if you are going to eat, eat." In other words, when you eat, just eat. Your focus is eating. But more intentionally, experience the food, the ingredients, the sun that grew the plants, the soil, the rain. A very "terroir" idea. And very hard to do.

Not coincidentally, earlier this week I ate at Greens Restaurant, a Zen Vegan place in San Francisco. So, I have been trying to eat with intention. It is a good thing to do. I enjoy it. Though I'm not sure enjoying it is the point.

Today at lunch I had Pho Bo Tai Gau  [Vietnamese rice noodle soup with beef stock ("bo") and rare beef and well done brisket ("tai" and "gau".)] The restaurant was crowded and noisy, and I had some interesting observations on the other diners, which I may share subsequently as well. I was trying not to be observing others, or the place - I was eating with intention - focusing on the food alone. I noticed that the rice noodles were too processed to allow me to experience the rice - they gave me no sense of something that came from the earth. By contrast, the fresh green basil leaves which I added to my bowl were very vibrant and alive (literally.) I could feel the sun that had fallen on the plant. But the beef made me sad. As I ate it, I experienced the short and painful life of the cow. This was a feedlot cow. It lived an uncomfortable life, and for it the sun was a blazing presence - there was no shade to escape the hot sun that baked it and the hundreds of other steer in its lot. It stood on bare, parched soil and fresh and dried dung. Its death was terrifying and grim. As I ate with "intention," experiencing the sun and soil that created this animal that I ate, I found that I could only taste the shit in which the animal had stood. For hours afterwards my mouth tasted like dung and dust.

Perhaps eating with intention right after reading Michael Pollen's The Omnivores Dilemma isn't such a good idea.